


Assistant to the Shapeshifter Summer Camp Counselors

by The_Baron_Cosmos



Category: No Fandom
Genre: F/M, Fantasy, Gen, I know ao3 isn't the best place for fandomless fic, Magic, Magical Realism, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Shapeshifting, Summer Camp, Urban Fantasy, but I got nowhere else to go baybee, spoilers i guess, whatever you call it when magic exists secretly in the real world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 13:15:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30089667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Baron_Cosmos/pseuds/The_Baron_Cosmos
Summary: Lars Vince, serial delinquent, nearly lands himself in juvy. Luckily, he can take community service to dodge jail time. Now, he's staring down the barrel of six days at the remote Horseshoe Hill Summer Camp, as a Teen Assistant to Camp Counselors. Can he behave himself for almost a week? Or will he end up in juvy after all?
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character





	Assistant to the Shapeshifter Summer Camp Counselors

**Author's Note:**

> This entire fic has a supplementary playlist, with each song paring for a chapter (in order, of course). Find the full playlist here:  
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5NcbX0zvMF8HXnjEOhe3Cf?si=LGEvD_ZeRxaYcyIN5RSL7Q&utm_source=copy-link
> 
> _I got a lot, not a lot, I gotta_   
>  _A lot less than a lot!_

Lars looked over the paper a few more times, turning it over restlessly in his hands. He read the words on it, the black inky letters seeming to writhe like earthworms on the white sheet. He didn’t process the information, though. It still all seemed to be in a foreign language to him. He sighed longly and loudly, leaning his head back in his seat.  
“Being dramatic won’t get you out of it,” prodded a voice from Lars’s left. His mother, eyes on the road ahead of them, set her jaw and clicked her tongue as she felt her son’s staring at the side of her head. “You know that, right? That you won’t be able to whine your way out of this one?”

Lars turned his head away, feeling blood rush his cheeks self-consciously. “Yeah. I think I figured that out.” He crossed his arms and leaned himself into the door of the car languidly.

Lars’s mother reached for the radio and turned it down, leaving the two of them in silence with one another for a moment. “And you understand what you did to put yourself in this situation?”

At that comment, he closed his eyes and winced. “Sure, yeah,” he said dismissively. “I get it. But what the Hell does-”

“ _ Language. _ ”

“Sorry.” Lars rolled his eyes and continued, far more sarcastically. “What the _Heck_ does summer camp have to do with it? It’s dumb. It’s like insult to injury.”   
“It’s not ‘summer camp’.” His mom looked over her shoulder at him for one moment, and then back to the road. “It’s community service. You’re doing it so they don’t send you to _juvy_.”  
Lars nodded passively at that. She was getting terse, and Lars didn’t want to keep pushing at the woman operating the two-ton murder machine he was sitting in the front seat of. Especially since she had been on edge generally since… Well, since Lars nearly put himself in juvy.

“You’re doing it because they’re worried about you.” His mom’s voice lowered, her tone grave, and she carried on. “We’re all worried about you, Lawrence.” 

_Lawrence._ Lars almost gagged at the noise. Only his mother _ever_ called him Lawrence. It was always Lars, and he was perfectly content that way. She carried on.  
“And remember what the stakes are here, okay?” As if he needed reminding. He kept his eyes down. “If they have to send you home early-”

“I’m going to juvy,” Lars intercepted, robbing his mom of her thunder. “I get it. I can handle it. It’s a goofy kids place. For kids.”

The highway out to the mountains was sleepy and arid in the summer heat, but when they reached the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, the path began to wind biliously. Lars kept his head between his legs at first, but settled better into his seat later and began to drift off.

He woke with a slow start as the car came to a sharp halt, parked in the dirt on a hill. He bid a deep breath to his lungs, swallowing back the dizziness lingering from the nap, and looked around.  
It was definitely the camp, all right. Just from the parking lot, he could see big buildings made of planks and logs. Strung across the sky between two particularly large buildings, hanging ten feet off of the ground, was a banner which said ‘ **HORSESHOE HILL WELCOMES CAMPERS!** ’ in blue letters. Standing under it was a small selection of adults in suitably outdoors-y getups, ranging from denim rompers to full khaki jungling gear. A hundred feet away, ten seconds in, Lars let out his first of many dismissive scoffs.

Lars’s mom threw the car into park and cracked her door open. “We’re running late, let’s get moving.” Lars, resistant, got up from the car and began to grab his things from the trunk. 

Encumbered by his luggage, sleeping bag, and the amateurish hiking backpack he’d set up, Lars waddled himself out toward the sign-in section. He stood in front of the plastic folding table and stared at the man sitting before it, a spindly kind of guy with wiry glasses. Lars looked him over, but was interrupted by the man’s shockingly loud voice.  
“Lawrence Vince, is it?” The man peered over his glasses at Lars, who recoiled at the full name again. 

“It’s Lars. Lars Vince, please.” The man seemed to at least take this well, putting  _ Lars Vince _ down on the sign-in sheet. The spindly man turned the sheet to face Lars. “Read this and sign here, then.” 

Lars took it. It was bold and garishly colored, and it read thusly.

**WELCOME, COUNSELOR IN TRAINING!**

By signing this sheet, you’ve officially become part of the fun-loving team here at Horseshoe Hill! You’ll be filling the exciting position of a Teen Assistant to Camp Counselors (TACC). As a TACC, you’ll be assigned to one of our many friendly Counselors. Get to know them, learn how you can help, and do what you can to make this next week a great one! You may also be involved in training exercises with other TACCs and campers, so get out there and have some fun!  **GO WOLVES!**

After that paragraph, the print became much smaller and Lars’s eyes started to glaze over. It was about rules, code of conduct and what was and wasn’t allowed. No sex, no drugs, and  _ absolutely _ no weapons.

His mouth suddenly going dry, Lars smoothed out his shirt in the back- an excuse to check for his slingshot, clipped into the back waistband of his pants with his shirt tucked in. It was small, thin, and low profile. Not noticeable. Hopefully.

He signed the sheet quickly without wasting time to look at the rest of the smaller print. With the time he’d saved not reading, he checked over his shoulder at the parking lots. People were streaming in, mostly families with little children, but a handful of people his age, too. Lars sighed. “Okay, who do I leave my luggage with?”

Lars heard a gut laugh and looked behind the spindly man, before realizing the deep noise had come from the little man in question. Lars looked quizzically at him anyway, wondering what he found funny.

“That would be you, Lars.” The man cracked a little grin as Lars’s lips tucked themselves into a cozy sneer. “You’re taking your things to your cabin.”

“And where’s that?” Lars urged, although he viewed himself as being unreasonably patient at this road block.

“You’re following him. He’ll show you.” The skinny man jutted his hitchhiker’s thumb out toward a much taller, much broader man in a flannel with a big brown beard. He looked for all the world like if the Brawny paper towel man decided he wanted to apply for a position as a mall Santa. At least, that’s what Lars thought, and it entertained him enough that he cracked up just looking at this man. He raised an eyebrow.  
The man pushed himself off the wall he was leaning on. “Come on with me, then, boy.” He turned and started off down the gravel trail deeper into the camp. 

Lars, despite himself, looked over his shoulder and smiled anxiously at his mother, who gave him a nervous little wave of her own. Her face, though, sent Lars a definitive message.

“ _ Don’t fuck this up, Lars. _ ”

The bearded man moved far faster than Lars did over the long gravel path to the cabins. They passed the mess hall, a few different activity tents and stands, and a big bowl in the dirt ringed with wooden benches with a fire pit in the middle.

The big, bearded man was standing outside the cabin when Lars caught up with him. All of the cabins sat threaded down one path along a sort of shelf of the mountain. Girls on one side, boys on the other, each cabin designated by the age of the campers which would be staying in it. Of course, each cabin had its own quaint nickname, designated by a placard above the door. As the bearded counselor opened the door for him, Lars read the name. ' _ The Crows' Nest _ '.

When he got to the cabin, Lars immediately started setting things down. The cabin was tiny, not much bigger than a moderate bedroom. Each wall was lined with tiny bunks, each bunk with a little rubber mattress. He claimed a bottom bunk at the end and started setting his things into it.  
The bushy man chuckled at him. “Lars, is it?” His voice had a soft accent Lars couldn’t place. “Call me Bucky. I’m to be your cabin leader.”

Lars looked over his shoulder at Bucky for a split moment before he turned back to cramming things into his bunk. Bucky continued. “So you’ll be helpin’ me. With activities and what have ye.” At a little hum of understanding from Lars, Bucky held out a slip of paper.

Taking it, Lars looked it over and asked, “What’s this?”

“It’s your schedule, there, Larry. We’re startin’ with kickball.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is just the first chapter. I plan to have the second chapter out by the end of the week, with each chapter released more or less than a week apart. Please check back later for more! I know it's a slow start but we'll get to some fun stuff soon ;:]


End file.
